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It’s unlikely that 35-year-old Santa Maria resident Jenny Altaira Patino will soon be nominated as Mother of the Year if the felony charges filed against her by the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s Office are supported by the evidence leading to her April 23rd arrest.
According to the Santa Maria Police Department Watch Commander’s Office, Patino faces nine felony counts pursuant to an investigation into her “maternal” activities involving dissuading “three boys and two girls” 5 to 12 years of age from reporting her abusive treatment of a minor child that took place over a 13-month period between March, 2023 and April of this year.
It was the reports of abuse made by those five young witnesses that led to the April 23rd arrest of Patino, who was transported to Santa Barbara County Jail where she was booked on two charges of “child abuse under circumstances or conditions likely to cause great bodily injury or death, three counts of assault with personal use of a deadly weapon, two counts of corporal injury to a child, and one count of dissuading a witness.”
As a convicted felon with two prior convictions, a conviction in this case would see Patino facing California’s Three Strikes sentencing protocols. She remains in custody with her bail set at $1.1 million.
